This is a World Herald post where I have left a match after nearly 4 months of game play. In that match, I was the first place winner and had mercifully spared one enemy to become an ally and rescued the other ally from the alliance that the first ally was a part of. Thus the three remaining nations (including myself) were allied with each other and were prepared (or so I thought) to vote to retire the match. However, the player that I rescued from defeat then betrayed me and actually allied with his former enemy against me. Though I had nearly half of the entire world and most of the economy and military, the shock of the betrayal was enough to bring me down and I lost that round. This is that final message:

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If no one cares for the great things I did for them, then so be it.

I've appealed with every right and righteous aspect of both other players remaining in this match. I have proven my worth and I played triumphantly and did not waver in my resolve to continue playing honestly and forthrightly. I've continued also to show good strategy even in the face of treachery and have already achieved a moral victory in this match.

That I would be denied any Gold even in third place is a testament to the cold-hearted nature of those who remain after me. I've been civil and I've been noble. The same cannot be said of the other remaining players.

When I generously proposed to share my total victory with the others -- giving up my prestige as the one true winner in this match -- I bore my good nature to them. When I was betrayed by both, not in the spirit of the less-favorable aspects of this game, but in the spirit of cruelty, I was slow to respond in the most carefully calculated way and I've lost solely because of that one mistake.

When I was mocked for my way of playing and even my way of being, I did not retaliate except to point out honest observations of each of my would-be assassins.

Know this: that word of your treachery has reached the ears of others and will continue to do so as I endeavor to work outside of this match to ensure that the insidious behavior of two remaining players will not go unpunished in the Call of War community. Gamer Reputation is far more important than any player score and the reputation of those remaining has been and will continue to be negatively impacted by their continued acts of wickedness.

I have stated the truth of things and this message goes out to the remaining players without addressing either of them specifically for neither of them have earned even an ounce of my respect and neither of them are worthy of my personal attention.

Thus I am leaving this match. If I get no Gold, I will no longer mourn the actions of my would-be betrayers. The lack of gratitude of each has not been forgotten and I will strive hard to avoid them in future matches. However, should I ever end up in the same match with either of them, I will rally the entire in-game group of other players against them to remove them swiftly from such matches.

I have stated my peace. I have not accepted defeat. I was the winner already before I was betrayed. That is why I claim the moral victory. In my mind, the actions since that day are irrelevant to that fact. They can mock me if they wish. But I know the truth and so do they.

Remember this: a victory by betrayal is not a victory. It is only a pox and a shame upon oneself that they must bear before the stiff-glazed eyes of those who would judge them.

As I have stated. I am done. I will offer no more resistance. I will build no more units. I will command no more forces. What has been done is done. There will be no further interactions by me.

To that end, I am leaving and will no longer monitor this match. So, whatever vitriolic responses this message may engender shall go unseen by me, the true winner.

So, as the true winner of this match, I can finally say only this:

*blows raspberry and makes faces.

The reasoning for that last post is as an example of why this request is necessary. In Call of War, there is a rating system for players' level of experience. But there is not an opinion system to rate personal experience in interactions with other players. I know that having the ability to negatively rate another user is sometimes frowned upon. Facebook unwisely posted a change in their system years ago removing the ability to dislike a post while keeping the ability to like a post.

But in many online games, there is the ability to maintain a level of gamer reputation that influences what others should assume about you. Do you have a good reputation for honest playing and good sportsmanship? Do you have a bad reputation for over-aggressiveness and wanton hostility towards all? Do you have a history of strong loyalty to allies or a history of frequent betrayals and back-stabbing maneuvers?

Those questions (and others) make up one's player rep. Reputation should be a separate rating that ought to be available to be viewed by would-be competitors in a match. As my example shows, there are two other players that I would like to avoid as well as to let others know what they did without actually black-listing them to others. Also, with the need for a rep system, we should also have the ability to create personal black lists and white lists of players that would stand out in a potential match to join as either to be avoided or sought out.

We need a Player Reputation System (PRS) to allow us to each find our friends as a conditional search in joining a new match as well as the ability to screen out new matches that have already gotten players whom been black-listed by us and maybe our friends as well. This is not the same as a targeted blacklist which is prohibited by Bytro (and with good reason) because that would ruin the gamer experience for those blacklisted whether justified or not. However, the ability to seek out one's friends or to avoid one's nemeses seems like a logical -- if not crucial -- idea.

Now, I know this idea would take some doing, but once created and added into the homepage listings as well as the in-game controls, then I think that Bytro's development team would be pleasantly surprised at how positively this feature would be received by the vast majority of the player community.

Because this new feature need not create widespread blacklists, only inner-circle blacklists, the main rules of Bytro would not be violated and the overall sportsmanship of Call of War would actually be improved for it's many users.

I do hope this idea takes off and is well received. In that last match of mine, there are two players that I would like to avoid and to inform ONLY my friends of their treachery. I would not wish to publicly scorn them individually nor would I tell others they have to be avoided but only to inform my friends of them and the general community of their anonymous history.

Truly, this idea should be one worth considering.

If I were to put a "TL;DR" in front of one of my own posts, when considering the length and thoroughness of my posts, I would be the most self-defeating author in history.

Perhaps you aren't THAT familiar with some of my other posts? I do talk a lot and I type nearly as much. It's a habit combined with a pretty good set of writing skills such as good grammar and well-organized thought-patterning.

Hm...I don't know about a poll. However, I do seem to have stirred up a hornet's nest among some.

The way I see it, this is not about tantrums and rage quitting and getting a chance to actually win instead of losing all the time. For me, it'a about nice folks trying to avoid having to deal with less-than-nice folks at least some of the time.

In history, the back-stabbing nations are usually met with great derision and disdain by the rest of the world. In war, when betrayed, the consequences are always one of either defeat or the most terrible of retributions.

Sometimes, maybe you just feel like not having your hard work ruined by someone else who isn't necessarily a better player but just someone who took advantage of your generosity or trust.

I proffer this, however, that those whom are opposed to the isolationist thinking behind my proposal are less inclined to consider honor among players to be of paramount importance in the gaming community. But that's just my two bits on that character trait.

Perhaps a consensus can be reached. Perhaps a compromise can be offered. Perhaps a way to block only one match at a time while all others are not blockable until the one match is finished either by victory or defeat. This is similar to my idea of allowing players to join one Gold-less match at a time to test their strategy and diplomacy without other outside influences in a match.

My overall point -- and this is true of many of the ideas I propose -- is to present a better balance of realism crossed with idealism. To offer a way of thinking that benefits most players in a manner that doesn't hurt those whom perceive the ideas as not beneficial.

Perhaps I'm too much of a diplomat. Yet, even the best diplomats are occasionally assassinated by their would-be friends. Which is why I wish to have a player ratings and blocking system.

Remember this, that the blocking idea isn't to keep other individuals from joining you in a match but to keep you from seeing a match where they are already located. The more extreme version -- to block them from joining you -- is less likely to win over mass support by both the playing community and Bytro thus that is not my main proposal but only an extreme interpretation of my proposal that others might wish to consider though I do not.